


Something Less

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5836372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are things you want to learn, and then there are the things you're actually taught.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Less

What Kylo wanted was to find the general as cold and un-empathetic as rumor made he himself sound. He wanted a stony-faced brick of a man, a frigid façade of humanity; he wanted to find in Hux all the things he was supposed to be, and from that example, he expected to be able to learn.

He did not expect to find such fire in the man. Such keen, honed intellect. Kylo might as well be another trooper for the respect the general shows; for Hux knows what lays beyond the mask, and he sees no man to be followed but a boy to be taught, and while Kylo hates him for it, hates being pushed down or ignored in a temper fit, he can’t help finding himself _respecting_ the man for _disrespecting him._

It’s ugly and backwards and inevitable. He hates Hux, how his profile looks as noble as any carved on ancient coins; hates his golden hair and how it catches the light just so. He hates the strong arms that gather him up in that apocalyptic snow storm, shielding his bloody face as the ground crumbles beneath Hux’s feet. He hates the man who rescues him from the imploding planet, rushing him to a ship and secreting him away to triage those ugly wounds, because anything else he might feel would weaken them both.

Hate is safe. If he remembers these things, piecemeal as he does, with hate and skin-crawling loathing, then they can’t become something Light, something brittle and friable.

“Welcome back,” Hux says as Kylo steps onto the bridge of their ship, bandaged but at last on the mend. There is mockery there, but there is always mockery between them, and no one can see the shadow of a smile cross his face with the mask in place as he nods condescendingly back to the older male.

But later, later when they are alone and his armor is all much too heavy, when his arms hang heavy at his sides, dangling from aching shoulders, he lets his mask be pulled away by pale hands. Hands he hates, too immaculate, too precise. He lets himself fall into bed and be drawn into arms he hates. A year ago, two years maybe, he’d have put at least token resistance into the embrace, fought for control, fought for the sake of fighting.

Time claims its little victories, and age brings wisdom. The need to fight every little comfort has slipped away, at least for now; lost in bloody wounds, in snowy skies and the fall of his father, that ugly hollow sound as the man fell dead from the bridge and left him victorious, alone. He can feel it all weighing him down, crashing in on him and he thinks for a moment that he won’t be able to move even if he needs to, before Hux, always five steps ahead in these matters, maneuvers him down comfortably, crushingly close.

Hux smells like leather and clean soap.

Kylo closes his eyes, sagging against the larger frame.

“Thank the stars,” is what the general says, and it’s hoarse and real and so beautiful that Kylo wishes he were younger, wishes he were something _less_ , so he could give in and allow the urge to cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of extrapolated where the movie ends, hopefully not an offensive liberty to take.


End file.
